


Whispered Words

by Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23143603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron/pseuds/Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron
Summary: Clark's noticed some odd behaviour over the years concerning Bruce. Some conversations Bruce would have with thin air. The way his eyes would drift to something that Clark couldn't see. While some part of him hopes it's the meta gene, Clark's not too sure.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 24
Kudos: 379





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone reading this I wrote it on my phone so all spelling and grammar mistakes I am very sorry about. I just have big thumbs and don't always catch the mistakes when I'm trying to get a story down

Clark always though Bruce Wayne was a little odd. Strangely enough it had nothing to do with being Batman. At least, Clark thought it had nothing to do with Batman.

It was just sometimes, there were things. Little things. Things that sort of added to the whole... mystique of Batman. Things like staring into space sometimes. Except, he wasn't staring into space. Clark had seen people stare into space, he'd done it himself enough times too to know what it was supposed to look like. On Bruce? There was no glaze to his eyes when he stared off, which really got to Clark when he finally put a name to what about Bruce staring at nothing bothered him.

He didn't stare at nothing. Well he did. But the nothing to Clark was something to Bruce. It was something that held his eyes focus. That kept Bruce's brain engaged enough that he concentrated on it and everything around him enough to not be staring into space.

It was a little worrying. 

Then there were the other things. Like the mutterings.

Sometimes it was when he was staring at 'nothing', sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes Bruce would be having a perfectly okay conversation with someone and right in the middle of it hiss something under his breath. The other person didn't notice. Clark did. Clark had superhearing. He heard everything Bruce did, everything he said, meaning Clark heard the mutters of "not now," "shut up won't you," and other things sometimes along those lines. 

Might they have been for who Bruce was speaking to? Maybe. Clark honestly wasn't too sure about this one. But sometimes, when Bruce did it when no one was speaking to him, when he was concentrating on something no one else could see, sometimes Clark wondered.

There were other things too. Things like the nightmares Clark had been witness too. The way shadows seemed to engulf him sometimes. Signs Clark had seen on other metas on occasion and had considered getting one of them in just to see if they thought there might be a slither of a chance Bruce had the meta gene too.

He didn't know, and honestly it wasn't his business those early years so Clark left it alone.

Then Harvey happened.

Clark was a journalist. What's more he shared a floor with Cat, meaning he was privy to all the celebrity gossip before it hit the front page. So, Clark knew, even if the rest of the league was in the dark about Batman's identity, that Bruce was dating. That he was dating a guy. Harvey.

"He seems nice," Clark told him over monitor duty one evening.

Bruce glared at him from behind the cowl. 

Right, no personal talk on the watchtower. "He does though," not that Clark cared, he could just be passing a comment on the guy after all. "Very sweet." 

He'd seen the photos. Seen how happy Bruce looked under Harvey's arm or sitting opposite him. It was, indeed, very sweet. More so because that meant Bruce was capable of being human, and any day Bruce smiled meant the world wasn't completely irredeemable.

"I like his policies," and the way he seemed to be a bit of a Batman fan. Sort of. He was Batman's fan one day and his worst enemy the next. It was like the guy couldn't make his mind up on what to make of Bruce's alter ego. "Not bad to look at either."

There was a short huff then, "If you like him so much why don't you ask him out?"

Clark gave him a look. "Ha ha." He wasn't like that. Even if he was he wouldn't undermine Bruce like that and they both knew it. "I'm trying to say I'm happy for you."

Another noise, "Well don't."

Right. It wasn't like they were friends or anything.

Except one night, a few months after that conversation Clark got a call. An unknown number which usually he never answered since Clark Kent was the one with the phone not Superman meaning no one important was going to be ringing him up.

But it was late and Clark had been sleeping so he didn't really look before asking "'lo?"

"Can you hear specific things? Like if I give you a recording of someone's voice could you try and find them?"

"Bruce?" 

"You didn't answer?" Yeah, that was Bruce.

"Er..." question. There'd been a question. "I guess?"

There was a sigh of relief before Clark was listening to a snippet of Harvey Dents voice through the speaker. 

"Why didn't you just say it was..." he sighed, tuning into the world around him. He found Harvey easily enough, the guy pacing in an empty room. "He sounds about thirty miles from you. Everything alright?" Harvey sounded fine, but fine to Clark wasn't exactly fine to the rest of Gotham.

"Fine." The line cut dead.

Clark tried asking after that just what happened, but, as usual, Bruce kept his lips tight. Except when he was muttering under his breath for someone to stay out of things.

...okay...

Then the accident happened. The one that was plastered not only in Gotham but Metropolis, Coast, Central, Star, DC, New York, basically everywhere. A hate crime. A tragedy. Whatever the media said or span it didn't change the fact that Harvey Dent had just been attacked. That he'd had half his face melted off live on television.

Clark hadn't known what to say to Bruce when they'd met up. What did someone say in this situation? Harvey certainly wasn't okay. Last Clark had heard he had been transferred to intensive care, and considering Batman was here and not there meant that he still wasn't allowed to visit.

Everything good Clark did want to say as well, every well wish, he knew Bruce didn't want to hear. Wouldn't listen to. Which made their time alone waiting for the others to turn up minute after minute of stifling silence.

Clark didn't blame Bruce for being spaced our that day. Or the meetings after.

It wasn't until Clark knew Harvey was out of the hospital and recovering at the manor that he slid Bruce a card. He ignored the fact it stayed unopened the entire meeting, Clark wouldn't have wanted to draw attention to it either if he'd been in Bruce's shoes. But something between them got better after that. 

Better enough that Bruce called Clark up in the middle of the night again to ask him to find Harvey. "Is he not there?" Obviously otherwise Bruce wouldn't be calling brain.

"Just find him," Bruce growled.

Clark listened, finding Harvey somewhere quiet and wet, "hold on," he grabbed some sweats, drifting out of his window and zoning in on Harvey.

He found the man in the middle of the street, the rain pouring down on his face. God it looked bad. It really looked bad and Clark didn't even blame the rain for this it was just a bad injury. 

Clark checked the street sign, rattling it off to Bruce as he kept an eye on Harvey. The man didn't do much, just walked. He seemed to be looking for something, the stopping and looking around him like he didn't know why he was outside in the first place.

A car pulled up about half an hour after Clark rattled off their first location. Bruce, in a silk robe, ran out the drivers seat and near tackled Harvey to the ground. Clark left as soon as Bruce started on leaving without waking him. 

This was a private.

Until the fourth time Clark was rang in the middle of the night. "He's talking with someone," Clark grumbled, burrowing his face in his pillow. "I don't know what you're so worried about. He's fine-"

"Just tell me where he is!" Bruce snapped.

Clark sighed, getting out of bed to find Harvey again. "You know you can't keep doing this. Either get a tracker on him or find someone else to call. I have a life Bruce."

He got nothing in response. Not that he was expecting it.

Harvey, this time, was in a warehouse... with a bunch of drug dealers? "Er, you might want to hurry on this one."

He hung around too, happy he came as Superman as he scared the dealers off and- was promptly punched in the face by Harvey Dent.

He was happy he rolled with it, the last thing he needed was a kryptonite laden punch from Bruce because he'd broke his boyfriend's hand. 

Another one came, and with it a stream of curses Clark honestly never thought he'd see from Harvey. It was honestly sort of a shock. But, then again, Clark had never really talked to the man, maybe he was always this aggressive around heroes.

"Harv!" Stopped the next punch, Bruce running in, robe on once more and latching, near dragging, Harvey away from Clark.

He didn't wait for direction after that, taking off and back to bed.

Bruce didn't phone him anymore. When Clark asked Bruce told him he'd put a tracker on Harvey.

"Is everything okay?" Clark had to ask after that. 

Bruce didn't look at him as he nodded.

Clark would have left it at that but, well, he wasn't that kind of person. "You can talk to me. You know that right? I don't- I'm your friend Bruce."

Bruce kept his eyes down, Clark getting the message.

It turned out things weren't alright. They weren't alright at all.

About a month after that night Bruce came knocking on Clark's door. Clark knew it was Bruce, he'd heard the ragged breathing and thought it was one of his neighbours before his brain somehow connected the fact that Bruce wasn't always in Gotham and he knew that breathing. That heart.

He made it to the door just as the third knock sounded. Bruce didn't let the door even crack before he was barging through and latching himself onto Clark.

It wasn't a hug. It was too desperate to be a hug. Clark told himself it was one anyway, closing his door around Bruce and slowly navigating them back.

Bruce pulled back after a while, his face wet and, "What happened?" He zipped to the fridge, gently placing a bag of frozen peas on Bruce's swollen eye.

It was fresh, and struggling to stay open. "Harvey and I broke up."

Somehow he wasn't surprised. Wait. "Did he do this?" All that aggression he'd had towards Clark. Bruce wasn't invulnerable, he couldn't handle the hits like Clark could. If that man- he couldn't help wondering if this wasn't the first time. If all of this-

"It wasn't- he didn't know it was me," Bruce muttered.

He got the full story out of Bruce eventually. It was sort of surreal really, listening to Bruce talk to him. To say more than one word to him at a time. 

But Bruce did, and he told Clark everything.

He told Clark about the sleepwalking before Harvey's accident. Then after, how things had grown worse. Bruce would go to sleep with Harvey by his side and wake to the bed empty, the sky still dark and no note. It would have been fine had Harvey not been injured. Had things not started to get a little weird. 

Harvey started talking to himself. "I thought he had someone in the manor but," Bruce shook his head, "it was him. And why would he have someone in the bathroom with him?" He laughed.

Clark didn't find it funny. He didn't find any of this funny. Poor Bruce. No wonder he'd called Clark up. 

Other things started happening. Harvey would sometimes snap at people when they were out. He'd just completely full on turn on people. People Bruce thought were their friends. Or Harvey's friends.

Then there were the clothes. More than once Bruce had found blood on Harvey's suits. Blood that wasn't Harvey's. Harvey's had discharge mixed in. This was pure blood. Familiar patterns too. Splatters like a gun had went off. A knife. Nothing self inflicted.

Then there were the calls. The people turning up asking for Harvey.

It had all come to a head tonight. Harvey... "He's on his way to Arkham right now," Bruce sniffed. He'd become a crime lord. "He always had a problem with dissociation." Probably a lot more too. The doctors would find out.

Hopefully. 

"He hit Batman," Bruce said quietly. Which sort of explained his denial that Harvey had hit him. "He broke up with Bruce though."

"Oh." Harvey had broke up with Bruce, not the other way around. "I'm sorry."

Bruce's nose twisted, whatever he might have said to defend that decision drowned out by his mouth telling Clark, "I'm scared."

"I don't blame you." Harvey was a murderer. He'd been doing who knew what when he sneaked out at night and Bruce hadn't a clue. His ex boyfriend was literally being escorted to Arkham right now because the police thought he was clinically insane and couldn't stand trial. If Bruce wasn't scared Clark wouldn't think he was human.

Bruce snorted as if reading Clark's mind. "It's not even about the crime boss thing if you can believe it." He wiped his eyes, lapsing into silence for a moment before, "I think I might be going the same."

"The same?"

Bruce nodded, "I..." his voice wavered, "sometimes there's- I don't want to hurt anyone."

Oh. "You mean about the... right." His odd behaviour. 

"Harv was the same. I've- it's been longer for me and I keep thinking that I'm just one knock in the head or- or- and I'll end up in," he took a shaky breath. 

Clark let Bruce talk along those lines the rest of the night. Let him rage when it came. Let him scream and burrow himself back in Clark's side when he was finished. He let Bruce get it all out.

They had relocated to Clark's bed, Clark dozing as Bruce paced and wrung his hands raw a little off. "Maybe you should talk to someone," Clark suggested when Bruce halted.

He shook his head immediately. "No doctors."

"Why?" Surely Bruce understood the help a psychiatrist could give him.

"How much time do you have," Bruce sighed. "Half are mad. The other half corrupt. If they don't misdiagnosed me they'll drug me enough I become codependent and give all my money to them." He paused for breath. "Alfred always says no as well when I ask."

So Bruce had tried. "Why does Alfred say no?" Surely that man more than anyone would understand what a psychiatrist could do for Bruce.

Yet Bruce shook his head, "Apparently my dad made him promise. No psychiatrists."

Odd. 

Unless... he shot another look at Bruce. Thomas Wayne was a doctor. He was also a smart man. Maybe, just maybe, he might have known something about his son that he didn't want others to. 

Clark sat himself up. He thought about it for a moment. It could be risky, maybe giving Bruce false hope, so treading lightly might be best. "What about the watchtower? I know Manhunter might be okay with talking with you." In fact Manhunter was the best suggestion he'd had to date. He was a telepathic. If anyone was capable of telling reality from fiction it would be him. 

Bruce seemed to realise that too as he slowed in his pacing, his arms coming up to grab each other. "Manhunter," he repeated consideringly.

"Don't say anything now," Clark remembered to say, "You're upset. Give it a few days?"

Bruce nodded, pacing a while longer before gently sitting on the empty side of the bed. "Can I stay here?" He asked quietly. "For a few hours? I don't- I don't want to go home yet."

Clark nodded, shuffling along a bit more. He called in sick to work before dropping off, Bruce snoring long before he was.

It wasn't a few days. It was actually almost a year before Bruce took Clark's suggestion of talking to Manhunter. He thought it was just Bruce's general unease with people at first. Then wanting to suss J'onn out before approaching him. Whatever it was something made Bruce call J'onn back after a meeting one day.

He found out later that it wasn't a gradual realisation. Bruce just snapped one day and realised he needed help again, and it was all down to this bright eyed kid staring up at Clark from within the bat cave.

"Hi," the kid squeaked. No more than nine Clark had to guess.

"Hey," Clark said back slowly.

There was a kid in the bat cave. Why was there a kid in the bat cave?

"Master Superman," Alfred chimed, walking as gracefully as he always did over to them. "I see you've met Master Richard."

"Dick," Richard sighed.

Clark hesitated only a moment before muttering, "I don't think you should be calling people-"

"It's his name," Alfred cut in, an amused glint in his eyes. "His preferred name and one I will endeavor to use. My apologies," he directed at Dick with a bow.

Dick giggled a little. 

Dick was Bruce's ward. A mischievous little thing that had snuck down to the bat cave one night when he'd finally put two and two together and demanded Bruce make him part of the 'bat team'.

"And you thought it was a good idea?" Clark checked when he got Bruce alone.

Bruce, fresh from a shower shrugged as he towelled his hair off. "He's determined. I said no. I tried grounding him. I even threatened to find a foster family for him and he still went out. I figure tempering his want to help me isn't going to do too much harm."

Bruce took him through it. How Dick was only helping on easy cases. Little cases like theft and extortion. He only went out for an hour a night as well, Bruce making sure Dick was safely with Alfred before he went back out again to deal with the big leagues.

It didn't sound too bad when it was phrased like that. But, again, no kid should be doing this in the first place so he still wasn't fully on board. Not until he tried to keep the kid off the streets himself and found out just why Bruce had gave up. 

Dick was slippery. Smart too. Clark couldn't be there all the time either so he honestly couldn't do much.

At least it got Bruce to J'onn.

Especially because, "What would you do if you thought someone was seeing something that wasn't there?" Questions like this started cropping up from Dick.

They were on the watchtower, Clark babysitting Dick since he was 'the coolest superhero to ever live', and Bruce was currently talking with J'onn. "Er," Clark thought best how to answer, "I guess just be careful. Why? Do you think they're going to hurt someone?"

Dick thought about that for a moment before shaking his head. That was interesting.

Dick, Clark had heard, had a sixth sense about danger. If he wasn't worried about Bruce then maybe Clark shouldn't be either. He was the one who lived with Bruce after all.

Then again, why was Dick asking questions like this if he wasn't worried in some way? Maybe Dick was, and he was hoping Clark would catch on without Dick explicitly stating that he was scared to be around Bruce.

"Robin?" Batman turned the corner and before Clark could blink Dick was flying onto Bruce and wrapping his arms around the Bats neck. Would a scared kid do that?

It weighed on Clark's mind. Enough that he found himself knocking on the manor more evenings than usual.

Alfred let him in every time, and sometimes he didn't see Bruce and went home with a few goodies and his wrist wishing it could cramp from all the signatures Dick made him write. Sometimes he did and he'd hang around and watch Bruce go about his daily life.

Bruce didn't seem bothered by him. In fact he liked to pretend Clark wasn't around sometimes. Other times however, found Clark here, in Bruce's room watching the man, again, go about his life. This time there with interaction.

"... said something about the docks so I went all the way there and," Bruce sighed, flopping into a chair. "It's been a long week."

"Tell me about it," Clark agreed, "Luther's out of prison which means I have him breathing down my neck every hour I go out in my suit."

They shared a commiserating look, Bruce's eyes darting off to the side for a second before refocusing on him. 

"How's Dick?" Clark asked, putting the glance to the side.

"Good." Except there were a few more glances. Then, "not now mom," that just hit Clark's ears.

Mom? Like Mrs Wayne mom? Like his... dead mom? "How's things with J'onn?"

"Good," Bruce said, eyes focusing again, "better. We're making progress."

"Does he..." Clark didn't want to pry but, well, he was curious. "Do you have any answers or... not?"

Bruce twisted his mouth, "Depends on your definition of answers." That was all he said to it the rest of the night.

That was fair. Bruce was entitled to his privacy, and Clark respected that so he didn't press. He just kept an eye on it, and his phone. The latter of which got a few more late night calls throughout the years.

"I think Dick's in Metropolis. Could you keep an eye on him?" 

"Alfred has me benched. I've sent you the proposal for the watchtower upgrade. You're going to have to give the speech."

"Dick's in Metropolis, could you maybe talk to him? See if he's okay?"

"I'm not feeling so well today," this last one Clark had actually called him. Dick had sent a message this morning that Bruce was spacier than usual. He'd taken a long bath too, and considering the last time Bruce had a bath it was because his leg had been broken that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Still, Clark had been surprised Bruce had just outright come out with, "Could you talk to me for a while?"

"Sure." Just what Clark didn't know, and ended up telling some tale about him, Lana and Pete back in Smallville. 

He came by the manor after work because of that, Alfred letting him in like usual. Bruce was in one of the games rooms, flat on his back and dressed in his robe. That same black silk one he'd had seven years ago chasing Harvey Dent across Gotham.

It was wrapped around him like a blanket, his arms resting on top and letting Clark see the long scratches because of this. They'd broke skin,and obviously were of Bruce's own doing. They were a little painful to look at. Especially when Clark wondered if Bruce had done it on the phone to him.

"Things get a little too much sometimes," he told Clark after a while, the two of them watching some movie that was already in the player. "Thank you for picking up."

"I'll always pick up," Clark promised. 

Bruce gave him a soft smile for that. A little thing that made Clark's chest go tight.

These little overloads started to get worse the more Bruce and Dick fought. It got to the point Clark had to beg Dick to stay at the tower a few nights longer so Bruce could cool off before their next blow up. Which, naturally, meant Clark was now on Dick's no speaking list.

"I'm not taking sides," Clark insisted, "I'm just worried."

"He's not glass Clark," Dick snapped, his face red and getting redder as he stood in Titans lobby, backpack on the floor, "if he wants me to stay away he'll damn well tell me himself now move!"

Clark shook his head, "Just one more night please."

He heard Dick's teeth grind. "You're not my dad, you don't tell me what to do. And you certainly don't tell me I can't go to my own freaking home."

He tried getting past Clark which, well they both knew that wasn't going to work. It just devolved from there. Enough so that Dick told on him to Bruce which meant Bruce wasn't talking to him now either. 

"Just don't get involved," Barry told him at the watchtower, "I know you're in love with him and all but unless he tells you to step in it's better off leaving things alone. Dick's his kid Kal, not yours."

Clark knew that. He wasn't trying to be Dick's dad. He just, he didn't want anything bad to happen. Also, "I'm not in love with him." 

Barry snorted before turning serious eyes on him. "Oh. Okay."

Barry thought he was in love with Bruce? "I'm straight." He was pretty sure.

Except a certain cousin being introduced to his life sort of told him different. "You didn't know?" Kara asked one day over waffles. Her english was still a little rusty,but even Clark understood the comment she'd made about one of the teenagers in the corner booth,and the words she'd said after that too.

"I..."

Kara blinked at him a few times before deciding, "earth is very odd," and filling him in all about krypton's naturally bisexual inhabitants and how the elimination of natural births paved the way for a happy romantic entanglement of creatures.

Bisexual then.

Bisexual.

Both women and men.

Huh.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason Todd was the biggest shit Clark had ever encountered. 

Normally Clark loved kids, but Jason? Jason was toeing a fine line between like and public enemy number one. 

It wasn't that he was the most evil person to walk the planet. He was just, shfifty. He knew the system too, the hierarchy that came with living at the manor.

Clark no longer felt safe being there, and, while he wanted to hate Jason for being the cause of that, he understood where the kid was coming from too. Statistically, kids were more likely to be abused the more strangers the parent let into their house. That statistic went up when it factored in the fact that Bruce was a guardian, not a parent.

Jason, Clark bet, knew that. Hell he probably learned that through experience, and Clark definitely didn't want to think down that route. Not about a kid. Not about a good kid like Jason.

A shifty kid like Jason who managed to kick Clark out for the fourth time in a row.

"Maybe we should reschedule?" Bruce suggested, leaning out his door. "Jason's still a bit uneasy around adults." And Jason definitely came first, no sarcasm intended.

"Yeah, no, I get it." He did. 

He just wished Jason didn't look so smug watching Clark walk away from the upper window.

Naturally things grew better.

With time, and with Dick slowly forgiving him, he wormed his way back into some sort of norm. Dick started talking to him again, and since things were a little volatile between him and Bruce still that made Clark the middle man. Which meant Clark had an excuse to talk to Bruce again.

It also meant he got someone on his side when Dick finally met Jason for the first time. "What a shit."

Clark stifled an agreeing hum. "He's just traumatised. I'm sure if you give it a few months he'll warm up to you." Since Dick wasn't a proper adult yet. Not like Clark.

Dick made a face. "Still a shit. You should have seen the way he spoke to me. Bruce too."

Well that would be hard to do since, "I'm not allowed in the manor."

Dick's face contorted, deciding between a laugh or a scowl. "Course you're not," Dick sniggered at last. 

Clark didn't want to think of Jason as a problem because he wasn't

Not really.

He was a kid. He was Bruce's kid, and Clark had weathered Bruce's kids before. He could do it again. He just- he wasn't sure. Something about everything being upset around him didn't sit right with him, and regardless of what Kara or Barry or anyone said, he wasn't jealous. He wasn't.

Why would he be jealous? 

Why would he- he just wasn't okay.

It took nearly two years before Clark was approached by the kid. Two years of keeping his distance. Then, of all things, Jason cornered him in the watchtower. A place that the new Robin always made sure to stick by Bruce's side near constant whenever he visited.

Jason took the empty chair next to Clark, eyeing him up like he was a wild animal. It hurt to watch, but considering the last time they'd met Jason was glaring at him from behind Bruce's cape he didn't feel complete sympathy for the kid.

"Robin," Clark nodded, turning back to his phone.

"Kal," Jason parrotted back. "Clark," he said a bit more quietly, "You'd know if there were something wrong right? Like with people? You have that cat cancer thing going on right?"

"The what?"

Which prompted Jason to show him an article about a cat that could apparently 'sense' cancer. Huh. 

"Uh, I mean, maybe not kind of like that," Clark muttered. "But I can tell things. Why? What's up?"

Jason sat there for a moment before turning away, "I guess it's nothing."

Oh. "Is this about B?"

Jason's chair swivelled a few times before the kid breathed out a "Maybe."

"Is this about when he talks to himself?" Clark pressed.

Jason's face twisted before a surprising, "No," fell out. "I know all about that. It's er, it's actually about _Agent A,"_ he whispered.

Oh. "Ah." Alfred was getting on in years, and Bruce had mentioned more than once that Jason seemed to like Alfred more than him. "I see." It was only natural for the boy to worry. "I can keep an eye on him if it would make you feel better."

Jason shook his head, "It's fine. It was stupid. Forget about it."

Clark didn't however, and the next time he saw Jason he told him Alfred looked healthy. Then the time after that. Then the time after that, and after that until the kid stopped looking so jumpy around him.

Bruce thanked him later as well. It turned out there had been a bit of a scare when Crane broke into the manor. If the fear toxin wasn't enough to spook them, Alfred's older age and the statistics of long term effects to fear toxin being more fatal in that age group was. 

"You know I'm always here to help," Clark told him, for once inside the manor. Or at least the batcave as Bruce typed away at his computer.

"Yeah." Bruce looked back, giving Clark a small smile. 

He couldn't help smiling back, his chest going all tight again. It was nice seeing Bruce smile. Every time felt like a gift. Even more so when it was him that made Bruce smile.

The months went on and Clark went about his life. He fought some villains, did some investigating, tried not to think too much on what exactly he should buy Bruce for his birthday.

Then it happened. It was like an avalanche, hurtling towards them out of nowhere. No trembling, no warning, and more coming once the first had swept them off their feet.

Jason died.

Clark had seen Bruce broken before but not like this. It took everything in him to stop Bruce from killing the Joker. Even more to stop himself from doing it.

Jason was a shit, but he didn't deserve to die. He wasn't even a shit he was just a kid. A kid who was terrified of adults. Who'd still went out night after night to help them and whoever else because he wanted to, because he saw it was the right thing to do.

He didn't deserve what happened to him.

"WHERE WERE YOU!" 

Bruce didn't deserve this either. Hadn't the world already messed with him enough? 

"WHERE WERE YOU?" 

Clark didn't know what to do. How to help. Whatever he could have done, the time for that had long passed. So here he was, listening to his failure, the consequences of his inaction.

"Where were you Clark?"

This was only Bruce too. God knows what Dick would think of him. If Dick even knew yet. He was still in outer space right? A mission he'd passed on because he thought a bunch of kids could handle it better. Nevermind that they were needed here, on their own world.

"I needed you. He needed you Clark. You can hear everything, you can travel faster than I can blink and-"

Dick would have done something. He would have stayed with Jason or at least tailed him long enough to see there was something wrong. Dick knew that when it came to missions like this it was better to split up. Bruce was only one man, he couldn't be in two places at once. Had he been relying on Clark to be that extra set of eyes?

"Where were you?"

"I don't know."

Clark spent the time between the funeral and Dick's return hanging around the manor. He didn't have a reason to stay away now, and that right there made walking these halls feel wrong.

Bruce was a silent companion. But he needed someone on him. Someone who wasn't Alfred who Clark heard cancel every appointment and school class and whatever else made up Jason's life. Alfred who also was falling apart. So Clark did it. He pulled Bruce's hands off his ears, the nails ripping at skin the whole way. He dealt with the fists. With the anger and screaming. He dealt with the sleepwalking and tantrums. He dealt with the drinking, and the talks to no one. The long stares at things Clark couldn't see. The odd conversations that made Clark want to cry because to this day he wasn't sure, he didn't know what was going on in Bruce's mind and that terrified him.

He dealt with it all because he hadn't been there for Jason. It was his fault the kid was dead. He wouldn't let Bruce think any differently. This was on him. Solely on him.

"He talks to him," Dick told him.

A month after his return from space Clark had found the kid perched on his couch, nightwing gear scattered around him. "Bruce?"

Dick nodded. "He talks to Jason. It's like he's still there. Sometimes."

Clark took the remaining seat. "Are you okay?"

Dick shook his head, big blue eyes he'd never grown out of boring into Clark's. "What if he's not there?" 

"Dick..."

"What if it's nothing?" Dick sniffed. "What if this is it? He still visits Harvey you know. As Bruce, not Batman. They have these conversations about- and-" the first tear fell and then Clark had Dick wrapped around him. "He ever tell you that Harvey broke up with him?" Came muffled from Clark's chest. 

"He mentioned it."

Dick sniffed. "He hit Bruce you know. The whole thing's on tape. Bruce wanted to make it work, but Harvey said no. When Bruce didn't get the hint Harvey hit him. Said a man who hurt Bruce like that had no business being with him." 

Well that certainly changed a few things.

Dick burrowed his face in further. "Harvey was himself enough to realise there wasn't any going back." And Dick didn't think Bruce was. Not anymore.

"It's going to be okay," Clark promised.

Dick shuddered out a sigh.

He kept an eye on Bruce after that, an ear too, listening in on those whispered conversations that seemed to get louder by the day.

Sometimes they were alright, just Bruce checking in, making sure Jason was okay, or someone called Jarvis wasn't worrying. Sometimes they weren't okay, and Clark could hear the panic in Bruce's heart, in his short breaths as he told the people around him to go away. To stop talking.

"You can't be here. You can't be here." Whether because they weren't or Bruce just didn't want them to be was still up for debate.

It got to the point Clark actively sought J'onn out, and learned some unfortunate truths while he was there. "What do you mean he hasn't been talking to you?"

J'onn's face minutely twitched as he no doubt gauged Clark's whirlwind of panic. "I don't know what you expect us to talk about Kal."

"Abo-" he hadn't been seeing J'onn. All those times Bruce had asked for a private word and- "He's- I mean-" he left, pacing his apartment enough times to calm down before knocking on the manor door. He didn't even step inside, just waited until Bruce appeared behind Alfred and told him, "You lied to me."

Bruce looked at him for a short while before quietly saying, "Close the door Alfred."

"No," he put his foot in the way, "Don't close the door. You lied to me. You lied to me Bruce! You said J'onn had been looking at you. You told me you were getting help. That you had answers." Lies all of them. He could see it now too. The way Bruce avoided outright saying anything. The way J'onn never pulled him aside it was always the other way around. "I thought you wanted help."

Alfred levelled Bruce with a look, "Master Bruce?" He promted after a moment. 

Bruce walked off.

Clark wasn't having it. "You have kids!" No wonder Dick had been worried. If Bruce wasn't actually getting help then that poor kid had been left in the dark, in potential danger, for who knew how long. "This isn't about just you anymore-"

Bruce rounded on him, "Get out."

It was their worst argument to date. One that ended in Clark swearing never to involve himself in this madness again. He couldn't do it anymore. He just- he couldn't.

So he didn't. He left Bruce to his own devices and told Dick there was always a place with him of he ever needed one. Something Dick took him up on far more than Clark thought he would. 

Sometimes it was because he'd fought with Bruce. Sometimes it was because he had nowhere else to go. More often than not however it was because Clark's place was the nearest pit stop on his way to the Tower and back.

"Are you seeing anyone?" Dick asked one night. He'd already made himself comfortable, stretched out on Clark's couch as Clark edited his latest article. 

"Not recently. Why?" There had been a thing with Lois but, well, that hadn't worked out.

"Dunno," Dick sighed. "Just wondering."

Clark cut his eyes to the kid. "Are you?" Last he heard Kori and Dick were through with as well. "Wait, is that what this is? Are you testing my reaction to your new girl out before you tell Bruce?"

Dick pulled a face. "No," he scoffed. "Just wondered if you were seeing someone." He found out why, later when they were sitting watching old cartoon reruns. "Talia's back in town."

Ah. "I see." Clark wasn't too fond of Talia. Neither was Dick.

"Bruce doesn't look interested but I thought, maybe if you were still single you could help keep it that way?" 

Another one to add to the list. "I don't like Bruce like that."

Dick's face twisted, looking at Clark for a while before he sighed and settled back down. "Okay then."

"I don't." Even if he did their last fight definitely put a damper on things. 

"Sure," Dick mumbled. "I miss you hanging around the manor though."

Loathe as he was to admit it, "Me too."

The third Robin Bruce managed to keep a secret from Clark until the kid was invited to his first Justic League meeting. 

Clark almost had a heart attack seeing those familiar colours walking around, and it took a panicked call to Dick to realise this wasn't Jason.

It was in fact Tim Drake. Thirteen, smarter than he looked and definitely not as prickly as Jason had been. 

He reminded Clark a little of Dick when he'd been younger. All wide eyes and curiosity. 

He didn't sit on Bruce's lap however. Instead he had his own seat, and definitely didn't mess around with Bruce's cape when the bat turned his back.

Tim was nice. Gentler in how he spoke too. No insults or curses like the last two had sprouted from time to time. A right little gentleman.

He shook Clark's hand when they were formally introduced after the meeting. "I've heard a lot of good things about you sir," Tim said.

Clark wanted to say likewise but, well that would be a lie. "It's good to meet you."

For about three months. After that Clark realised Tim's baby face had duped him. He was just as diabolical as the others. Sure, he took care to stay on Bruce's good side, but the rest of the league were not Bruce. 

He seemed to just appear from nowhere with a notebook in hand and tell them he was practising his detective skills. Clark had never been so insulted in his life when he heard all these 'findings' Tim had discovered about him.

"Were they wrong?" Dick asked, contorted in some God awful position as he ate his breakfast.

"Well, no," not exactly wrong, "but it doesn't mean some things need to be said out loud. And I am not repressing my sexuality. How a thirteen year old even knows about that is beyond me." Then again he'd been tossing words like that around too at Tim's age. 

Dick hummed as he shoved another spoon in his mouth. "Whatever. Tim's good for Bruce. He's good at Robin and that's good enough for me."

That was because Dick wasn't being insulted every time the kid came onto the watchtower.

Or he was being insulted until Tim came up one afternoon and for once didn't bring his notepad. Bruce had wandered off to yell at Hal, which was probably how Tim had found time to escape and catch Clark polishing his boots for a ribbon cutting he had tomorrow morning.

"Hello Mr Superman," Tim said, still scaring the living daylights out of Clark.

"Hey Robin."

Tim edged a little bit forward, this whole thing giving Clark major deja vu. "Can you keep a secret?"

That didn't sound good. "Depends what it is?"

"It's about B." Here we go. "It's not really something that needs to be a secret. I just need more time to get my data together. But I was hoping you could keep things quiet if you do help me?"

That was a lot to unpack. "What's going on?"

Tim's face twisted to the camera, his body angling so it couldn't see him speak. "I think there's something wrong with Jason."

Clark blinked a few times, not sure he heard that right. "Jason?"

"Jason Todd," Tim nodded. 

"Dead Jason?" As harsh as it was to say that was the truth of it.

Tim nodded again however. "Bruce's stopped talking to him. He's started to look a little worried too. I think something's happened to him."

"Tim..." he started, not sure how to end that sentence. How did someone tell a kid their maybe boss was potentially hearing things?

Tim seemed to understand what he was trying to say anyway as he squinted at Clark, "You know Bruce is a meta right?"

"I... suspected," that wasn't to say he was sure however. "But there's not enough evidence."

Tim didn't even hesitate before saying, "If you look in the right places there are. I found a bunch of old diaries Thomas Wayne wrote. Bruce is definitely a meta."

"Oh." Oh god. Clark hadn't known just how much he'd needed to hear those words until this moment. Bruce was okay. Bruce was actually okay. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to keep on track. They were talking about Jason. "Okay. Okay so he's a meta. He's actually a meta. What does this have to do with Jason?"

Tim gave him a long look. Oof he'd been spending a lot of time around Bruce. "Bruce has stopped talking to him," Tim told him again, slowly, like he was an idiot. "He can't find Jason. Which means he's either moved on or something's happened to him." He pulled out a notebook, a new thing with a Robin symbol on the front. Store bought, and Clark knew because Dick had a few too. "I've been keeping track of who Bruce interacts with. I think my former theory has some merit, but what exactly would move Jason on is unknown, and since it was so sudden and there are others who have been around much longer than him I don't think it's an expiry thing."

Ghosts. Tim was talking about ghosts. All these years Bruce hadn't been staring at nothing. 

"Which also begs the question of how the afterlife works. Who exactly can Bruce see? What are his limits? Can he pull people from heaven? Is there a heaven or are we all stuck on this plane of existence the rest of our lives?"

Serious questions that were starting to mess with Clark's head. Ghosts. The afterlife. He'd... he'd never really wanted to think about it before. But Tim was right. Bruce had answers. He had real answers, and at least, Clark realised, there was something more after death.

"I don't know," Tim concluded after a moment, "but I think the latter could have some merit too. I just need more time. And maybe a bit of help?"

"Yeah," Clark said immediately. "No, of course, I'll help." 

Tim grinned back at him before rattling off a list of names he should not down the general summary of conversations Bruce had with them before skipping off. 

God bless that kid.

Now Clark was in the know, he only felt slightly bad about keeping an ear on Bruce. Before, well, before their big fight, it had felt okay to be doing this because, well, what if this wasn't the meta gene and Bruce ended up hurt? Clark was doing both him and Bruce a favour by keeping one ear on Gotham. Now? Well, things were different now. Clark actually felt like he was intruding in private conversations instead of insane mumblings as he listened to Bruce tell his father it was too late for him to apply for medical school.

Clark cracked a smile at that. Bruce talked to his parents more than anyone else. He told his mom to butt out when she started on... a girlfriend? He wasn't sure, it was hard filling in the other part of the conversation. Thomas seemed adamant that Bruce go to medical school. It wasn't even so Bruce would be a doctor. It turned out he was just sick of dispensing information to his son on how to give proper stitches. 

Jarvis was also someone Bruce talked a lot too. Often it was with complaints about Alfred, and it only took some minor digging to find out Jarvis was Alfred's father. God they looked alike. It was sort of sweet, too, to find out that even stoic British men like Jarvis looked to be, and apparently was as he reprimanded Bruce almost as much as Alfred, that they cared just as fiercely about family as the rest of the world. 

Clark noticed other things he hadn't the first time too, listening to Bruce. One time, as he flew home from a fire call, he heard Bruce speaking to a kid. A kid that wasn't there. He was getting information off them anyway. Information that the next day when Clark checked the news, managed to put a serial killer behind bars.

Whether Bruce thought it was delusion or not he checked more with the dead than Clark formerly would have been comfortable with. It brought to mind all those occasions when Bruce would say he had a hunch with no evidence to back it up. It had taken great feats of trust to get all of them on board with Bruce's hunches when they came. It was sort of freeing to realise they weren't hunches af all. That the only one who did, probably, believe it was a hunch was Bruce.

"Does he know?" Dick asked when Clark caught him next. Dick looked as relieved as Clark had to learn his dad wasn't crazy.

"I have no idea," Clark answered honestly. "I'd like to think Tim might have told him but, well Tim's a kid-"

Dick made a face at that, "Kid or not Bruce puts a lot of trust in us. If Tim had the right evidence Bruce would listen."

Then Clark really didn't know. "You could always tell him. Tim said there were journals. If you and him get together," he thought best how to word it, "Dick you wouldn't believe how long he's been waiting for answers."

Dick nodded. "I'll tell him then."

Which was when the phone rang. Clark didn't think anything could upset his life more this month than what had already happened but, well he'd been wrong before. "Come to the manor, quick, please."

Clark had never heard Alfred say please before, Dick looked just as scared too as he scrambled for his shoes and hopped on Clark's back.

Revelations or not, the universe hated Bruce Wayne. Clark knew that now.

Why else would it send something like Bane to Bruce's own house.


	3. Chapter 3

The heart monitor beeped. Clark could hear it from where he was sitting, head in his hands and staring at the wall in front of him. 

So long as it beeped Bruce was still alive. 

He peeked through his fingers, watching Dick's socked feet pace. "You should put your shoes back on," Clark mumbled.

"Too tight," Dick said back, still pacing the long hospital hallway.

Tim was still crying opposite him. The poor kid was shaking, he being the one to find Bruce. If Alfred hadn't been there, one arm slowly rubbing along Tim's arm Clark wasn't sure he could have done the same. All he could concentrate on were the beeps coming from a room four corridors down from them.

Bruce was still alive. Thank God he was still alive. Whether Bruce would think the same would remain to be seen.

From what Clark heard, breaking the news that Bruce might never walk again didn't go over well. Clark had been at work when that talk took place. He hadn't wanted to be, but there were only so many days he could beg off before Perry started looking for replacements. 

When he came back, whatever words Bruce had spilled meant he was alone when Clark came in. He listened, finding Dick back at the manor with Alfred, Dick softly cursing as the soft thumps of a boxing bag swayed. Alfred was asleep. Tim. Well Clark didn't know where Tim was. He seemed to be near the manor, but everything was quiet around him. 

Clark kept an ear on it as he trudged into the room. "Hey."

One icy blue eye glared at him, falling shut when its message had been delivered. 

Clark took a seat anyway. He could deal with Bruce. Had done for years. Still his hands clenched a little as he said, "I'm sorry." The words felt hollow coming out.

Bruce thought the same as he scoffed, shoulders coming up like he was going to move before the pain halted him in his tracks. A huff followed, then more as Bruce tried to fight against his own body.

It was awful to watch, even worse when Bruce admitted defeat with a grunt. 

Clark didn't say anything more, just sat there and pretended neither of them heard the soft sniffs and slow tear tracks coming from Bruce's face.

Things didn't get better. Bruce was alive, but life without his legs wasn't something he ever thought he'd have to consider. Every step forward for the rest of them were three steps back for Bruce.

He could go home, but the manor wasn't equipped to handle a wheelchair. It would take weeks to install everything Bruce needed too, meaning no manor. Or at least no upper floors.

He couldn't shower or bath without help. Not at first. He couldn't sneak into the kitchen anymore late at night, the stairs leading down, again, not equipped to handle a chair.

More than once Bruce had gotten his chair stuck somewhere, and only after hours of no one finding him, of finally realising he wasn't getting out of there on his own, did he call Alfred.

The worst thing had to be no Batman. Bruce couldn't do it anymore. Which meant no Batman.

Dick, Clark knew Bruce hoped to entice him into taking on the mantle but, well all of them knew that wouldn't end well. Bruce was too possessive, too set in his ways on how the Bat should be and act. Dick didn't want to be Batman anyway. He was his own person, he'd worked hard to find himself, and Clark knew how much Nightwing meant to him. So there was no way Dick could do it.

That didn't mean Dick didn't take up the slack. He came to Gotham as much as he could to clean up. Eventually, Clark heard, he was moving into the manor permanently.

"That's not fair on you," Clark told him. It wasn't. Dick was young, he had a life, he had responsibilities, he didn't need to be dragged back to Gotham.

But, "He's my dad." Also, "it's not even fully about him. Tim needs me. Bruce is so close to taking Robin off him and that kid- he needs Robin Clark."

"Then I'll go," he decided. "I'm the right build, and Bruce has let me be Batman before. I can just double up my patrols." It wouldn't be too hard. He didn't actually need to sleep after all.

Except, "No offence Clark but this isn't your problem. He's _my_ dad. And this is my decision and I'm going."

He tried. Clark did try but Dick ended up putting his apartment for sale no matter what Clark told him. It didn't matter that Clark was around the manor near constantly now. Dick would do what he wanted to do, always had.

Bruce took Clark's presence there as well as Clark thought he would. Meaning not well. 

They'd always had a bit of a volatile relationship. One that seemed to get worse now Bruce felt physically threatened. He couldn't run away anymore, Clark had to remind himself when Bruce lashed out. He can't fight. Bane broke more than just his body that night. 

Still, the stress of all this didn't exactly make Clark a saint either. He yelled back when provoked. He told Bruce he was an idiot, dangerous, suicidal when the man made remarks about customising his suit. 

"This was my life!" 

But it wasn't anymore, and Clark was at his wits end trying to tell Bruce that. 

"Go home Clark."

He was just glad the boys weren't in earshot. He knew Bruce and Dick fought but usually those fights were Dick doing most of the yelling. Bruce, he'd learned, only raised his voice to a select number of people, and Clark was one of them.

"I hate it when you do that," Bruce sighed one night. They were sitting by his fire, in his room, snakes and ladders set out between them since neither of them pretend these days pretended they actually found chess fun.

"Do what?" Clark asked, sliding his red piece up a ladder.

"Treat me like a child," Bruce muttered. "You always have. I hate it."

"I don't treat you like a child." Had Bruce not seen him with the Robin's? Clark wouldn't say half the stuff he'd said to Bruce to them.

"Fine," Bruce admitted. "Like I'm fragile then. I know you listen. I don't need you to listen."

Clark took a deep breath. "I don't do that for your benefit. You had kids living under your roof."

"And I wouldn't have taken them in if I thought I would be a danger to them."

Another deep breath. "I was worried."

"You didn't need to be."

"But I did," Clark snapped. "I did Bruce. Things might be out in the open now but I didn't have a clue that you were a meta back then. You didn't either in case you forgot. It wasn't like you were seeking help either, were you." He still hadn't forgiven Bruce for that.

"I didn't need it."

"You might have," Clark countered. "You were so desperate for answers Bruce, why did you not get them? J'onn could have told you in seconds but you-"

"He couldn't," Bruce muttered, slouching in his seat.

"What?"

"J'onn couldn't," Bruce repeated. "I did. I went to him. I went to him after Harvey actually but he couldn't get into my mind."

He- "Oh."

Bruce bit his lip. "I don't know if I have it. I have something. But I don't know if it's a gene."

Clark sat back, rubbing his temple. "Tim's worried."

Bruce nodded. "He thinks I can talk to the dead."

Clark looked at him a moment, "You don't?"

Bruce shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I can. Maybe they're just things I see."

"Your hunches though," Clark remembered.

Bruce shook his head, "Could be just hunches. Sometimes the brain moves too fast for people to comprehend and mine decided to cope by giving me voices to talk to."

Which was a plausible suggestion. "But there's something Bruce."

He nodded, "there's something. Doesn't mean it's ghosts though." 

They lapsed into silence, Bruce reaching forward with a wince to get the dice. Clark didn't help. Bruce wouldn't appreciate it. 

It rolled and clattered, Bruce shifting his piece a few steps ahead. "It's not that I don't like that you care," he said after a moment. "I just don't understand why you do. I'm not fragile."

"No," Clark admitted. "You're not." And he honestly didn't have an answer for that other part other than, "I just don't want anything bad to happen to you."

Bruce gave him a sad smile, "I think we have proof you can't always control that."

Yeah. Big proof.

Their night of peace ended the next morning when the two of them got into a fight about gloves, of all things. They were still going when Alfred came up to tell them that Tim was here, playing in the foyer with Dick.

Tim. "Isn't it a school day?"

"Tim's homeschooled," Bruce said, wheeling himself purposefully over Clark's foot. "He likes to do his school work here when his tutor leaves."

Clark followed on behind him, "And his parents are okay with him coming here?" He'd never actually realised until he'd spent more time at the manor that Tim didn't live here. He had parents. A home. One that was right next door actually.

"His father's in a coma. Mother's deceased."

"Oh god." Maybe he wasn't so different from the other Robin's after all.

Months passed after that. Tim still kept the Robin mantle and Bruce remained wheel bound.

Then a few people started to make themselves known to the Justice League. Other heroes had run ins with them before, but this was the first Clark was hearing about them.

Zatanna Zatara was one such person. A magician who helped them deal with the Queen of Fables. Her magic was fascinating, if a little terrifying. It turned out Clark was vulnerable to magic. Who knew.

The next such person was a girl. A young girl actually who Dick brought to the tower one day. "This is Raven," he introduced, the other members of the league nodding as they noted down her name. She was a promising new recruit, and since she'd served in the Titans everyone knew she was battle hardened.

Deadman, someone who wore people's bodies like suits came after. Then Shade. Then Constantine. 

Magic.

Magic existed.

Demons existed, and suddenly Clark had an idea.

He asked Raven, since she, out of all of them, might know Bruce through Dick. He chose a day Bruce had nothing on, and brought her around to the manor.

"What is this for?" Bruce hissed as Raven did a slow circuit of the room. 

"You want proof, I think she can give you it. Her telepathic abilities rely on magic more than," what? Base natural abilities? Something like that. "Just give her a shot."

Bruce didn't want to. It took Clark half an hour to convince the man, and Clark knew why. Bruce was scared. If Raven could give them answers then she was either going to tell Bruce he was crazy or a meta. One would bring peace of mind, the other Clark wasn't sure of.

Bruce was a stronger man than Clark because he eventually agreed to it. He didn't even flinch as Raven sat opposite him, a ball of shadows encompassing them.

It felt like hours but had only been a few minutes before the shadows dropped and Clark could see the two of them once more. "Well?" He near begged.

Raven nodded, looking more at Bruce than Clark. "There's something supernatural inside your blood." 

"What does that mean?" Bruce asked quietly.

Raven thought for a moment before saying, "If you want answers, there are people who can give you them."

Bruce nodded, understanding what Raven wasn't saying. That Bruce didn't have to look further. He had confirmation. He had some sort of powers. The rest? Just how he had them? He didn't have to go looking. Not when he might not like what he finds. "Thank you for coming," Bruce told her.

Clark showed Raven out.

He knew before Bruce that the man wasn't going to leave this alone. Bruce was a man who needed a purpose. Needed a case to solve, and this one didn't need Batman. So Clark wasn't wholly surprised to see Bruce packing a bag when he came to the manor from work.

"Does Dick know?" Clark asked, undoing his tie and picking up the sock Bruce had left on the floor.

Bruce nodded. "I told him to go back to Bludhaven. If that's what he wants." It wasn't what Bruce wanted but Bruce would always tell Dick to find his own happiness first. It was why Dick was still Nightwing. "Huntress and Oracle are taking care of Gotham. I... I trust them."

Clark grabbed the last shirt in Bruce's drawer. His practical drawer anyway. The other shirts Bruce had would never fit inside that bag. "Do you know how long you're going for?"

Bruce shook his head. "I'm taking Tim though. I finally got guardianship of him." Right, father in a coma. "Alfred's thinking about staying if Dick is."

Clark nodded. "It's going to be strange. I'll miss you."

Bruce rolled his eyes, taking the carefully folded shirts in Clark's hand and stuffing them into his bag. "I'm not going forever. Or to another planet. You have super speed. If you really miss me that much you can always visit."

He tampered down a smile. "Maybe." 

They left in a car of all things. Bruce told him their first stop was Rome. Then London to meet up with Constantine. A long journey, and one Clark hoped gave Bruce a slither of happiness by the end of it.

Dick stood by his side as Alfred drove them out the gates, his spoon clattering in his bowl as he waved one last time. 

"You could have went," Clark told him.

"I know," Dick said. "But Gotham needs someone, and both of us know Bruce wouldn't have went if I hadn't stayed."

Clark closed his eyes, opening them to pull Dick into a side hug, "You're a good kid Dick."

He hummed, spooning another bowl of something too sugary into his mouth. "You know you could have went too."

"Me?" Clark scoffed. 

Dick didn't treat his words like a joke however as he nodded. "He would have let you. He was probably waiting for you to ask."

Clark tried not to think about in the days that followed.

With just Dick in the manor Clark went around every now and then to check on him. He needn't have worried. Almost every time he went over there was one Titan or another lounging in one of the rooms. Usually Wally. Free lodgings Clark supposed. Nothing to turn their nose up at their age.

Still Clark went around, and when he did he tried not to think about what he would be doing if he'd went with Bruce. Or why it mattered that he regretted staying behind.

It wasn't like Bruce didn't call. He did. A lot actually. Without Batman to take up Bruce's time he had a lot of extra hours in the day. Enough to get a social life. Hence the calls.

Clark had to admit they were a lot more amicable over the phone than in person. Or maybe it was the time apart to cool off. Whatever the case Clark got updates here and there about Bruce's travels across the world.

About Tim missing the vigilante life. About Bruce being sort of glad Tim wasn't in it anymore. About Alfred showing them his old digs and how, apparently, he was something of a celebrity in England. 

Strange.

Fun too. Lots of fun.

"You're moping," Diana told him.

"I'm not," he said, head resting on his hand as he watched the monitors flicker. "Just bored."

"Then I shall strive to be better company," Diana huffed.

"No," he sat up, "it's not you. I just, I don't know, I've not been feeling myself lately."

Diana gave him a sad smile. "Understandable. You've taken a lot on yourself this year. With Bruce gone I bet you have a lot of free time."

"I don't regret taking care of him."

She held her hand up. "I did not say that. You know I think what you did was admirable Kal. I merely meant it is alright to miss him. He filled a very large gap in your life Kal."

Right. "He did." A big one. "I do miss him."

Diana took his hand, squeezing it gently, "I miss Steve too when he is away. It's only natural."

He hummed, realising only later he let Diana compare Bruce to Steve. Him and Bruce, they weren't like that. Clark wasn't like that. Not with Bruce anyway. They were friends. Just friends.

"How can you be bisexual if you don't feel like it?" Clark asked one evening.

Diana shrugged, the two of them lazing around the watchtower communal bay. "I do not understand all these labels people put on things."

He sighed, turning on his side. "What was it like for you? When you realised you liked Steve?" She had been raised on an island of women. Maybe it wasn't the exact same scenario, but Diana had to come to terms with liking another gender at one point.

Sure enough, "I did not understand it at first. Those feelings crept up on me. You must understand I was truly seeing the horrors man could bring to the world when I realised I'd fallen for one." She seemed lost for a moment, returning with a dreamy look, "Eventually I realised it was foolish of me to categorize everyone as the same. I was even more foolish to deny myself happiness because I was unsure of it. It's a scary thing, realising your perception of yourself isn't true."

He hummed in agreement. He'd had his world turned on its head more than once in his life. Alien, orphaned alien, alien with no hope of ever seeing his home species, superpowers and now this. "Maybe if I'd grown up on krypton it wouldn't be such a hard concept."

Diana gave him a look, "You and I both know you have no problem liking men Kal. It's just _the_ man that caught your eye you're worried about."

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "I don't like Bruce. Not like that."

When he opened them Diana was giving him another sad look. "Maybe you don't like him. But you do love him Kal. And that's okay."

He didn't know what to do with that because he did love Bruce. Bruce was like family to him at this point. To deny it would be to lie. Yet Clark couldn't make himself believe he was in love with Bruce.

He'd never been in love with a guy before. Never wanted them the way he wanted a girl.

He grabbed his phone, spending the next seven hours on forums. It was something he probably should have done before, but, he supposed fear really was a strong procrastinater. By the end he didn't know whether he wanted to laugh or cry. 

A lot of what he found he felt in himself, and, well, he'd been kind of naive to believe that bisexual was as overpowering as it was made out to be.

No fifty fifty split. Actually, some people spent most of their lives sticking to one gender over the other. Bisexual meant both, but it didn't necessarily mean he letched at everyone that went past. For some people they veered more towards one gender. For others they were open to all. Then there were those who most of their lives they went after one gender, and only someone truly special from the other could make them consider switching. 

There were other terms. Other things that stuck with him. But that last part, that part spoke to Clark. Bruce could be the anomaly for him. He could be the one guy for the rest of Clark's life he had an attraction to, and that was okay. It was okay to admit to himself. 

Bruce could be a guy he liked.

He just didn't know yet. He didn't know how to know.


	4. Chapter 4

Clark heard Bruce was back in town not by a casual meet up or a phone call, but by him helping save the world. 

Clark didn't even realise it was Bruce. Not until that gravelly voice was sounding in his ear, telling him to duck.

"B?" 

He couldn't see Bruce, but he was there, on the comms. Then after too, standing amongst the rubble with a modified Batsuit and Robin running around his legs.

Everything around Clark seemed to still and melt away. Bruce was here. He was here, he was close enough to touch. So Clark did, somehow managing to not knock Robin down as he tackled Bruce in a hug.

He was gentle, his mind still wrapping around the fact that Bruce was here, that Clark was touching him that he didn't register the other big change. The fact that Bruce shouldn't be of a height with him.

He reared back, watching Bruce stand on his own. Bruce seemed to know what he was thinking since he gave Clark a short smile. "Physio paid off."

Physio. "You're walking."

"Maybe a bit of magic too," Bruce admitted.

Tim was suddenly tugging on Bruce's cape, "Tell him what else you can do B."

Bruce waved him off, "later. There's still cleanup to do."

They regrouped back at the manor where Clark had the pleasure of watching Dick witness Bruce walk out his car all on his own. "No way!" He tackled Bruce there and then, as if testing, too, that this visage was for real. "You can walk."

"Missed you too," Bruce said, pulling Dick in for another hug.

Alfred got them all situated in the living room. Even Wally, who was still in his night clothes and looking about as shell shocked as Clark felt.

Demon blood was apparently the answer to Bruce's questions. Actual demon blood. His parents, like all rich folk, were fans of the occult. Some interesting happenings later and Bruce was born.

"So you're like Raven," Dick said.

Bruce shrugged, "I don't think it's exactly the same but sort of."

Dick nodded. 

There were a lot of things Bruce discovered on his travels. The magical community had a lot to teach him, each of them exploring different parts of Bruce's blood. "I can't do magic," which he looked rather put out about, "but the talking to the dead thing is definitely real." So were a few other things. Like shadow travel. Bruce didn't look like he liked it much, "it's a bit unstable," but it was useful, and Clark knew Bruce would be mastering it in no time.

They listened to every morsel Bruce had to offer them, Clark still revelling in the fact Bruce was here. He was whole again.

"So are you going to be Batman again?" Dick asked.

Bruce sighed, "Maybe not right away. But yes."

Dick nodded.

Bruce raised his eyes at Wally. "Are you staying here?"

Wally, as if realising he wasn't invisible seemed to blanch, "er..."

"I said it was okay. It's quiet without you here," Dick said.

Bruce nodded. "I don't mind. But you're going to have to make sure Alfred's fine with it. And that he stays in his own room," Bruce ground directly to Dick.

"I'm twenty," Dick whined.

"And he's two years older and a daytime vigilante. Separate rooms."

Dick went off in a huff, but he saw Wally moving his things into another room before he left.

It was rather surreal having Bruce back. Clark didn't have to listen half way across the world now to hear his heartbeat. Nor did he have to go to the manor to visit him now.

In fact, more often than not, Bruce met with him in Metropolis. It started with getting lunch together after Bruce was in town for business. Then dinner the following month after a drug shipment they were going to bombard later was taking off from Metropolis harbour. Babysitting Tim while Bruce fetched them take out. A movie.

It was nice.

"My Pa's coming up. Him and Ma are sussing out the market, maybe thinking about getting a stall so he's staying here a few days," Clark told Bruce the next time he dropped by.

"You're Pa?" Bruce copied.

"Stop," his accent wasn't that bad.

"What's he like?" Bruce asked. "Your Pa?"

He ignored the purposeful twang to shrug. "He's a good guy. Real hard worker. I know he wishes someone was able to take over the farm for him still. It's sort of his pride and joy."

Bruce nodded. "Right. Farm."

"You knew I grew up on a farm," Clark reminded him. "It's practically the first thing you told me."

Bruce pursed his lips, "It's just weird hearing it in context. Like it's real."

Clark nudged him over, "you live in a manor you have no leg to stand on the 'realness' of people's lives."

Bruce rolled his eyes, finishing off his pizza. "I'd like to meet him. He sounds nice."

"He is." To a select few people. Someone like Bruce? Clark wasn't so sure. Jonathan Kent wasn't someone who liked big money. Usually because those kinds of people were the ones threatening to take the farm off him. "Maybe you could come to Smallville one day. Make a weekend of it or something and meet Ma too." She'd temper any ill will.

Bruce nodded, kicking his feet up on Clark's coffee table. "If I can bring the boys I don't see why not."

When Pa did come to Metropolis Clark had never felt so... he didn't know how to describe it, short? Like he wasn't living up to the potential his parents thought he had.

His apartment wasn't the best. In fact he seriously needed to redecorate, or hide the holes he may have put in the wall by accident a little better. His job, well, he was a reporter, like he wanted, but it didn't pay all that well. Nothing like some of the big shots got. But Clark was happy. He liked it. He just wasn't sure his dad would see it that way.

"What's so funny?" Pa asked when Clark finished giving him the tour of the apartment.

"It's nothing. It's just, I dont know why but I feel more comfortable showing an actual billionaire my home right now than my dad." He had no problem letting Bruce in. Yet his dad he was hiding the dirty towels from?

Pa raised a brow, "Billionaire huh?"

"A friend that comes by every now and then." 

His pa nodded, an odd look on his face before he dropped the subject and started on stalls.

It was nice having his Pa around. Once all the awkwardness left he was excited to show his dad where he worked and all the good places in Metropolis. His dad was good company too, seeming to know more about Clark's articles than Clark.

"I can't believe you and Ma still have them," Clark said.

"'Course we do. Our son's a big shot reporter. Your Ma and me are keeping every article we can get our hands on." If only to lord it over the other parents who Clark knew liked to show off their kids too.

He Pa was there for three days, and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Until the last night Pa was staying Clark got a phone call.

"He's back," it was Dick.

"What? Who?" 

"Jason," came the harried voice. "Jason's back a- a- and I don't know what to do. There's something wrong with him and he's went missing and Bruce is panicking and-"

"Okay, okay calm down."

Dick didn't calm down. The more he talked the more panicked he grew until Clark had to put the phone down just to get his boots on.

"There's food in the fridge. I'll be back as soon as I can," he told his dad, and thankfully his Pa was used to him zipping off since he didn't even blink, just waved Clark off.

Bruce was indeed in a panic when Clark got there. The other two as well. The only one who wasn't was Tim, the poor kid lying immobile on a cot.

"Jason got him," Dick muttered. "He's- there's something wrong with him."

Just what none of them knew. All they did know was that Jason was angry and out for vengeance.

The Bat suit lay untouched in its case, Bruce pacing upstairs, calling Jason's name every now and then. Clark left when they needed confirmation of Jason's grave, flying by and preparing himself to see a body.

Except there was no body. Which meant the guy pretending to be Jason might actually be Jason. 

But how?

An animated corpse? Some sort of magic? Time travel? Or... maybe just resurrection. It had happened before, Clark knew it could happen again. Surely there would have been signs if that were the case?

He reported his findings anyway, Dick getting paler by the second when Clark told him there were sizable scratches inside the coffin. Like someone had dug themselves out.

"I don't understand," Dick mumbled, hands flickering through buttons that sent the computer running through Gotham's cameras. Whether they were showing Gotham now or Dick was searching for some sort of sign Jason had indeed been walking the streets for weeks Clark didn't know.

Clark took a deep breath. "Okay." Dick had called him to be the clear headed one here and that was what Clark would be. "We need to think practically. How did Jason look?"

Dick told him. He even brought up a cowl cam photo of Jason, the boy sizably bigger, older too, but definitely Jason.

"He looks find. No compromised motor function. No slurred speech or delay," Dick rattled off. "It's like he was just poof, put back together."

Clark bit his lip. "Not necessarily. Just because he looks recovered doesn't mean he is. Maybe he was just having a good day." Hell they just had to look upstairs and know that injuries, severe injuries weren't fixed overnight. Some days Bruce still couldn't get out of bed. It was why he was only Batman part time. "If he has compromised brain function that's going to be even harder to diagnose until we have him here. He's going to be dangerous, but our best bet is to bring him in."

Dick nodded. "I just, I don't know how. He's using guns Clark. He took down Tim too."

"Then we definitely need to get him in." The old Jason would never hurt a kid. If that wasn't a sign there was something wrong then Clark didn't know what. "You have tranqs right?"

Dick did, and snatched an old Robin belt to load himself up on them. Clark took some too. "I'm gonna call Wally," Dick muttered. "He's fast he might be able to sneak up on Jay."

Clark left him to it, wandering upstairs. Bruce was still pacing, still asking whoever was around him for Jason. Clark knocked on the wall, Bruce waving him off as soon as the first one sounded. "We're gonna bring him in. You might want to come down."

Bruce hunched his shoulders, shaking his head. 

"Okay." Clark left.

He found Jason easily enough thanks to Dick's cowl cam. The kid was hacking at a wall in amusement mile, Clark hearing the dry coughs of someone else nearby too. It didn't take much to learn it was the Joker.

He touched down, avoiding the swing when it came rather easily. "Jason?"

Jason's heart was beating faster than it should be. His eyes were off too. The pupils too large, the rings too bright. Was this magic?

Clark kept his voice light as he let Jason appraise him. "Should have expected the swing. You always did hate me."

Jason's lip curled, huffing as he turned his back to go back to hacking the wall. "The old man's got you doing his dirty work then. Shouldn't be surprised."

"B isn't making me do anything Jason," there was a strength behind those hits there shouldn't be. Something off had happened to Jason. "He wants to see you though. He's missed you so much. All of us have."

Jason laughed, the sound echoing loud and manic. "Yeah right."

"He has." Clark brought himself a little to the side of the kid. Eye contact and all that crap. 

Jason gave one last swing before resting the hammer on his shoulder, challenging, "then why isn't he here? Why did he send you? Why is there a new fucking kid in my colours if he missed me so much?"

All good points. "Okay," and all ones Clark could answer. "He can't walk very far these days Jason. Today's not a good day." According to Dick Bruce had been pestering Alfred in the kitchen when the call came through Tim was hurt."

The hammer shifter a bit, "Wh- what do you mean it's a bad day?"

Clark filed that away, moving onto Jason's next point, "He didn't send me. I came on my own. Nightwing's coming though. We just want to talk."

Jason weighed the hammer for a moment before he started swinging again, "should have thought of that before parading the kid in front of me."

Right. Tim. "If you come back with us we can explain-"

"I don't want you to explain."

Clark heard what Jason was really saying. "If you come back B will explain." 

Jason weighed the hammer again, that light in his eyes still shining too bright as he shook his head. "Gotta do this first," he decided, more to himself than Clark.

This being the clown Clark could still here. He had a bad feeling about this. Especially when he saw the other booby traps Jason had lay inside the fun house. As he did, he saw Nightwing's familiar blue stripes crawling along the rooftop.

Damn.

The whole point of going first had been to entice Jason back without tranqs. Whatever was driving him wasn't letting up however, so Clark closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

A lot of bridges had been broken that night. But Clark would be damned if he made Dick knock his own brother out. They needed Jason to listen, an Clark knew he was never going to be the one to inspire that. Not with Jason. Best to keep the one ally he had left with their hands clean.

So Clark zipped up before Jason could think to react and stuck his neck with a dart.

The kid went down after two, Nightwing dropping in with Wally on his tail. "You guys take him back. I'll handle the Joker," Clark said, already making his way over to where the psycho lay bloody and bruised. 

While Clark hated the idea of Jason murdering this guy, he still felt a glimmer of satisfaction listening to the Joker wince as Clark flew them less than steadily back to Arkham.

"You might want to increase security. Whoever broke him out might not be done with him."

The doctors Clark took names of. He knew there was more than one person in this world who wanted that clown dead. If Jason did get back in, and got in easily, Clark would know which doctors had turned a blind eye. Just like he knew now which ones would be refusing to give treatment to their new, escaped, patient.

His Pa was asleep by the time he made it home. It was probably for the best, Clark didn't think he could make conversation at this point if he tried. Almost as soon as he reached his couch he was asleep, waking early enough to see his Pa off but little else.

The Jason situation he didn't hear much about. It was rather like before in the sense that Clark kept his distance from Gotham. He wasn't allowed around the manor anymore. Nor was he allowed to spontaneously drop in and help out like he had been doing. He'd forgotten how hard it was to be out of the loop.

That didn't mean he regretted it. Jason was alive. What's more, Clark understood the radio silence for what it was. He knew as soon as he knocked Jason out he was declaring himself public enemy number one. Whatever trust there had been between them was gone. That's why Clark had done it. Better him than Dick. Dick was Jason's family after all, Clark was just some guy who was friends with his dad.

It wasn't all bad either. Around six months after his reappearance Bruce started popping up at Clark's place again. At first it was for a case. The next time however, he just wanted company Clark thought.

"Jason's adjusting," Bruce told him. "He's still finding it hard but he's adjusting." He could not be adjusting and Clark thought Bruce would be happy. He was practically glowing these days, the fact he had his family back together a good look on him.

"The pit?"

Bruce made a face, "Difficult to say what lasting effects it has but it seems to be getting out of his system." 

Clark hadn't known what to say when he learned the pit was involved. Madness lay in those waters, and for poor Jason to be let loose with it high in his system was a cruel joke all around. "Tim?"

Another face. "Jason's adjusting." Meaning they were still fighting. Or Jason was yelling and Tim was just taking it. "I don't regret taking Robin off them though." 

Off both of them since Bruce was adamant that neither one of them needed to be a vigilante to be happy. Clark had to agree with him there, even if the boys didn't. "You know they're just gonna make their own personas."

Bruce shrugged not even denying it. "If it's their own maybe they won't fight." After all it was the title of Robin that got both of their blood pumping. 

"Are you still thinking about doing part time?" 

Bruce nodded after a moment. "Zatanna wants to start a sub division in the league. I was thinking about joining. Just for a short while. It's a lot less physical stuff, more investigating. I'm good at investigating."

Clark didn't deny that. "So you're going to be using your powers?" It was still wild to think that. To sit opposite Bruce and know he was different, just like Clark was.

Bruce nodded. "I think joining this might help me hone them a bit more."

"Then I'm happy for you."

There was another reason Bruce came that night it turned out. A reason that saw Clark touching down on dry earth three weeks later and waving at his parents.

He was right about his Pa being a little wary of Bruce. But after the rough introductions he didn't keep his hesitant exterior. Clark wanted to think it was the kids, but he wasn't sure.

Either way, it was a nice feeling having all the people he loved under one roof. Even if he still had to keep his distance at times.

"They are adorable," Ma told him, the two of them watching Tim and Dick investigate the cow field. "You picked a good one."

"A good..." oh. She thought. "Ma-"

"I'm proud of you," she told him before he could get a word in, and that shut Clark right up. "Not a lot of men take on single parents. I'm glad I raised you differently." She looked back, Clark knowing she what she was seeing. Jason hadn't wanted to see the cows. Or, more correctly, hadn't wanted to bother them like the other two. Instead he and Bruce had dragged out an umbrella, hoisting it in the air and taking refuge beneath it from the hot summer sun. Bruce was already almost as red as Tim, head thrown back in pain as he listened to Jason catch up on his school work. "He's a nice boy," she told him.

"Yeah," Clark had to agree. "Real nice."

It was time they all needed to relax. To not think about saving the world or petty rivalries. It was just them, the hot sun and nothing around them for miles but corn.

More than once Clark took them to the barn or the hill him and Lana always thought as theirs and watched the sun set. They always trudged back way beyond dark, either Clark or Bruce carrying Tim depending on how good Bruce's back was that day. They'd put the kids up in Clark's room, Dick sneaking down despite being the only one without a curfew, to beg a few cookies from Ma.

"That boy's a menace," Ma would say if they were inside, nevermind that she had been saying the opposite earlier.

She still said it when Clark was outside, only to Pa, the two of them curling up on the sofa as Clark tried to see which constellation Bruce was pointing out.

"That one was my favourite," Bruce said, his finger tracing the line of stars. "When I was sleeping rough abroad I used to look for it. My parents, they always told me to go home, that I didn't have to be there. But on a night, when it was dark and I was afraid, my mom would lie with me and tell me about the stars while my dad kept watch. I didn't know if it was real, but it helped."

Clark couldn't even begin to imagine how terrifying that must have been for Bruce. "When I was younger, and we didn't know, we used to come out here on a night and wonder which star was my home." He knew they were just as curious as he was about it. Even if they'd feared the day Clark was taken from them like nothing else. "Ma used to imagine all these wild sci fi gadgets and clothes and Pa... Pa told me that the people there must be real sweet. Because I was real sweet you see."

He saw Bruce's smile in the darkness. "Dork."

"I was," Clark defended.

Bruce hummed, "Was," he agreed.

Clark shoved him into the dirt.


	5. Chapter 5

Recovery was a long and painful process. There were good days and bad days. Days where Clark wanted nothing more than to go to the manor and carry Bruce to the kitchen instead of listening to him struggle. Days when he wished he wasn't so much of a wildcard that he could stop Jason and Tim tearing each other apart instead of waiting for someone else to notice.

He wished he could do more. But he couldn't. So he didn't.

Still didn't stop him from mentioning every now and then, "If you stayed in the penthouse for a while you wouldn't have to worry about stairs."

Bruce scowled from his seat, shifting a little as his back no doubt ached. "If I moved it would just make me lazy."

Clark dropped it. For now. He still made commente every now and then however. Small things that could honestly help if Bruce weren't such a stubborn ass about everything.

That wasn't to say there weren't good days. "What's this?"

Bruce stretched out on Clark's sofa, giving him a look that that told him he damn well knew what it was. Still, "Jason's joined a drama group. He wants us all to go, and I figured if I had to suffer through it so should you."

Clark bit back a smile, "Is he really that bad?"

"Jason?" Bruce shook his head, "My boy's a star in the making. It's the others." There was a look there. One only a dad who'd been forced to sit through a few rehearsals would ever have.

"Good to know." He cleared his evening. "How's Tim?" Dick, he knew, was back in Bludhaven since it was a shorter commute to Coast. But Tim was still back at the manor, probably heavily supervised right now by Alfred as he made the two boys interact in some placating way.

"He's... he's having a little difficulty with school," since Bruce had sent both of them back to actual school instead of tutors when Jason insisted he wasn't going to be trapped in the manor for days on end. "But his marks are good, and Jason's slowly starting to gain that pack mentality Dick grew for him."

Meaning he was starting to realise that Tim wasn't going away and the pride of the family was at stake when someone messed with Tim who wasn't him. Classic big brother stuff. "That's good."

Bruce hummed in agreement. 

The play, when it came, was god awful. Jason was good however, more than good honestly. He seemed calmer than Clark had ever seen him too, standing up there reciting lines. Happy.

"You were wonderful," Clark told him when it was over, all of them waiting as Alfred brought the car around. "Really. Definitely a star."

Jason gave him a hesitant look before nodding, "Thanks. I like to think going undercover helped hone my skills here and there."

He couldn't help the snort that escaped. "Probably. Still great though."

There was a small smile at that. 

The night was good, amicable, and Clark was allowed to stay for the after party of pizza and soda so he saw that as a win. 

He didn't believe bridges had been mended, but he did see there was something made better between him and Jason. Whether that was because the pit was dying off or he just saw Clark as an easy way to get what he wanted Clark wasn't sure yet.

What he did know was that he didn't enjoy the secret meeting Jason set up a few nights after to bully Clark into helping him be a vigilante again. "Just talk to Bruce. Or at least let me patrol Metropolis for a few nights."

Oh he didn't like this. "Bruce took Robin off the both of you for a reason Jason. I'm not getting in the middle of this."

"Coward," Jason muttered. "And I'm not asking to be Robin. I'm seventeen, I'm old enough to have my own identity now. Dick was sixteen when he tried Nightwing out for the first time."

Clark held off from telling Jason Dick still kept Robin until he was eighteen, and merely did Nightwing every once in a while because this was exactly what he told Bruce would happen. "I think you should talk to Bruce about this."

"I think I should prove to Bruce that I'm capable and then have the conversation," Jason countered. "You know he's been treating me with kid gloves since I came back. Just let me prove that I'm still good enough."

Ah. "Jason you know you're good enough." He sighed, preparing himself to have another conversation like the one he gave Dick. "Look, if you want to be a vigilante, there's nothing anyone can do to stop you. But you have to be sure. There's more to life than this Jason. You've done your time, you've paid your dues, if you want out, if you want a normal life it's allowed. You're allowed it."

Jason out of everyone deserved to have a happy, normal life.

"If you do want this then I will help. I'll let you patrol Metropolis until you're ready to go on your own. But think about it first okay?"

Jason huffed, turning towards the door. But he thought about it, and when Clark saw him next he said sorry for putting him on the spot like that. "I talked to Bruce. He's letting me tag along on his Justice League stuff. See how I do."

That was probably safer. Sort of. "That's good. Now I'm not gonna get Tim doing the same am I?"

He didn't. But Dick did. Before Clark knew it the Teen Titans had a new junior member and Bruce had Jason by his side. Not exactly a win win but they seemed okay with the arrangement so far.

With the Titans came a new development. One that Clark wasn't so sure about. Kon was... an interesting fellow. He looked so much like Clark it was hard to look at him as anything other than a threat. But he was a good kid.

Inside.

Way inside.

On the outside he was a brash overconfident guy who liked to remind Clark at every available opportunity that there were better ways to be a hero. Better ways to save people. Better ways to eliminate bad guys.

"He's just so- so-" 

"Young?" Bruce finished. "Because he is. He looks like a fifteen year old but really he's what? Six months? Younger? He's a baby Clark, he doesn't know any better."

"I know." He did. It was just hard to remember that when the kid was staring him in the face mouthing off. "I just don't know what to do with him."

Bruce shrugged, "I'd offer to take him but I'm not in Gotham all that much anymore." Not to mention he only liked a select few metas in Gotham altogether. An unknown super? No way was Kon staying with Bruce.

"Maybe I can ask my parents to take him," Clark mused. They'd dealt with a super boy before, they could do it again. But, he just didn't want to put that kind of pressure on them. "Maybe part time at least." That wouldn't be too bad. It would give Clark a chance to ease into his life too.

"Coward," Bruce huffed, and it was so much like how his kids said it Clark just knew they'd got that from Bruce now.

"You know what I am a coward. I'm not good with kids. Not long term anyway."

"No one's good with kids," Bruce told him. "No one's ever prepared either. But you adapt and you learn and somehow you survive. If you want to take on Kon I can help you, but don't sell yourself too short yet okay."

He sighed, still not sure what to do. But he did let Kon move in with him. Temporarily. Clark also talked with his parents. Probably more in those first weeks than he had his entire move to Metropolis. Kon kept giving him these weird looks when he did, like he couldn't figure out how it was so hard for Clark to get what he was doing or on about or something that Clark just- he didn't know about.

His parents found the whole thing hilarious. After they got over their anger at why Kon existed at all. His Ma was on the first train out, showing up on Clark's door with an pie she thrust his way and a hug for Kon to welcome him to the family.

The weekends turned out to be a good system. It gave Clark a chance to get his breath back and steel himself for the week ahead. Kon loved the farm too. Those wide open fields and the quiet. He pretended he didn't, and outright told Clark to his face it was boring there. But Kon was always first up when it came to Friday morning, dressing and waving himself off to school as if the faster he got that over with the faster he would be in Smallville.

Slowly Clark got the hang of him. Of he thought of Kon more like a roommate than a surprise child it was much easier to live with him. 

Kara, when she finally touched earth again, was delighted with Kon, and pretty soon Clark found his apartment full on random days with laughter and talk about a planet neither he nor Kon would ever visit.

Clark could tell Kara, as soon as she saw Kon, didn't feel so alone in the world anymore. Kon was the younger cousin she never got to look after. He was the kid with the attitude who felt just as out of place here as she did, and Clark was happy for them. Happy that they had that between them.

A knock came to his door early November. Kon was the one to answer, a hesitant, "Clark?" Called back.

Clark didn't even need to look to know who it was. "Just let him in."

Bruce scared the shit out of Kon for some reason. Clark didn't know what it was, but it was kind of funny watching the kid jump whenever Bruce was in the vicinity. 

Clark put it down to all those late night visits. Kon never heard Bruce come in, and usually screeched like a banshee whenever he saw Bruce sitting calmly on their sofa.

"I ordered Thai," Clark called.

"Yum," Tim said, Bruce's little tag along coming into the kitchen with an actual bottle of wine to give to him. "It's polite to bring one when you get invited over to someone's house," Tim explained when Clark didn't take it.

"Right," if that was the case him and Bruce were way into the negatives on wine giving. "Thanks."

Tim grinned, going off to introduce himself to Kon.

Dick and his team had been the one to find Kon, Tim off that day because of an exam. They seemed to get along however, Kon's brash nature balancing out Tim's quietude. 

Bruce approved of their friendship. Hence bringing Tim around every time he could. He even, Clark overheard, was the one to suggest Tim extend an invitation for Kon to join the Titans.

"And Jason?" Clark wondered, wouldn't he like to be a Titan.

"Jason seems happy with the league. Making him a Titan feels like five steps back. Besides, I've been talking with him. So long as he stays on this path he's on I... was thinking about giving him the Batcave."

"Batcave or Batman?" Clark checked.

Bruce shrugged, "if he wants the mantle then I can think of noone better. But I think he's happy being his own hero right now too. Besides, I'm still Batman I just don't go out in Gotham as often as I used to." Hence the batcave standing mostly empty.

At least until Jason started remembering little tidbits of his time abroad. Clark was around the manor, Kon playing some game on Tim's console he was pretending to follow along as Bruce napped on his shoulder when- "BRUCE!" 

Everyone bolted up, Jason skidding in moments later, hair wild from sleep.

"Bruce. Oh God Bruce she's got a kid. She's got a kid Bruce." 

Bruce's kid, it turned out. Some young boy called Damian. As soon as Bruce heard that he was down in the batcave calling up Talia herself to see if it were true.

Clark sort of kept out of that mess. He didn't need to make more enemies than he had, and he always had a feeling if he got on the wrong side of Ra's that man would find some way to take Clark down permanently. So he stayed away, and only when Bruce called did he come over.

Damian. Well Damian was adorable.

All baby soft hair and chubby cheeks. He looked so much like Bruce it was funny. He ven had Bruce's scowl, pouting adorably up at Clark as he sat silently, waiting for his father to return.

"I like him," Clark said later when Damian had toddled off to bed. "How old is he?"

"Six. And you're probably one of the few in the manor right now who does."

Ominous. But not wrong.

It turned out Damian's chubby cheeks and wide eyes were all a ruse. He was a demon. Probably worse than Jason, and considering Jason was one of the few Damian tolerated Clark did not like the look of that team up.

Tim got the worst of it. Being raised as an assassin Damian appeared to be attempting to take down his competition for his father's attention. Obviously he liked Jason and Dick was still in Bludhaven, meaning Tim was probably in the worst position in the house right now.

Meaning Clark increasingly found the kid in his apartment when he came home from work. "Just one night," Kon would beg. One night turning to once a week, Clark finding out that Tim sometimes went to the farm on the weekends too just to escape Damian.

"He's a demon," Tim would huff.

Clark wanted to say otherwise but, "Well yeah." Damian sort of was. If Bruce had demon blood then it stood to reason Damian would too.

Which had Clark around the manor more often now he remembered that little nugget of information.

Damian's temper was off the scales. Bruce didn't seem too bothered by it however. Just like he wasn't bothered by the fights. Or the possessiveness. Or the tantrums Damian would throw out of nowhere. 

Clark ended up having to intervene one day and invited them all to Smallville again, hoping the fresh air would cool everyone down.

It sort of did.

There were more places to hide on a farm. More distractions for a six year old too. Namely the animals. Damian had never seemed so at peace than when he was staring at a cow, a crayon in hand and for once not looking like he was going to use it to gouge someone's leg.

"Maybe you should get him a dog," Clark suggested, hiding in his loft, the night sky sparkling in. "Then again, I'm pretty sure animal deaths are the first sign of a serial killer."

Bruce snorted. "My son is not a serial killer." There was a pause, Bruce getting up to join him at the window. "Not anymore anyway."

Right. Assassin. "I don't know how you're so calm. He's so..."

"Young?" Bruce said, reminding Clark of the exact conversation they'd had about Kon.

"Damian's not Kon."

"No," Bruce agreed, leaning on the windowsill. "He's not. Kon had the mental faculties, if not the experience, to figure out right from wrong. Damian's six, his world has literally been turned on its head."

Clark felt bad now. "I didn't think about it like that."

He saw Bruce smile even if the man did hide it in his arms. "It's fine. I wouldn't have either except Jarvis likes to remind me not all kids are brought up in a manor. That sometimes they're confused and hurt and don't know anything but being confused and hurt. It's a lot for them."

Jarvis. "Is he around now?" Because Clark had never thought about it before but Bruce was literally a plethora of parenting knowledge now he could actually comfortably trust in his ability. He wondered what Jarvis had to say about Kon, and just how Clark was supposed to talk with him about not making condoms into water balloons.

"He's watching Alfred back in Gotham," Bruce told him. "He usually does when we leave Alfred behind." Even if this was sort of a vacation for Alfred too. One week without superhero craziness was a week Alfred deserved. "My parents are looking after the kids."

Right. Clark leaned a little further over the edge. "What are they like? Your parents? Do they... approve?"

Bruce snorted. "'Course not." He stood up a little, "But they understand there's not much they can do."

Clark nodded, wondering how frustrating that must be for them.

"They're nice people," Bruce went on. "My dad's still nagging about medical school. Mom's just happy I'm not in Arkham. They miss Jason. He used to hang around them when he..."

Clark didn't even know what to say to that.

"They er," Bruce hesitated before saying, "They like you."

"Me?"

Bruce nodded, slouching back into his arms. "They keep telling me to ask you out," he flung out casually. "I keep telling them you're straight but... you know, parents." 

Huh.

"They're sticking close to Damian these days," he went on, "I think Damian can see them. I think he's... like me. I'm not sure though. If he is it would answer some of his behaviour. I know I was terrified when I realised not everyone could see the people I could."

"Huh," Clark said out loud this time.

They lapsed into silence for a while, Clark watching the stars for a while. Up until Bruce said, "You never asked me."

Panic gripped him as Clark tried to think about what. 

Bruce went on when the silence continued. "About what I could do. You never asked me to look for you. To try and find your family."

Oh. "Oh." Huh. "I didn't think about it to be honest."

Bruce nodded, "I figured."

Bruce was right however. He could look. He could give Clark the answers he'd always wanted. "Have you ever...?"

Bruce twister his face. "I tried. But I'm not too sure how my powers work yet. I don't know if I'm just not close enough to where they died or if they dont want to be found."

Clark didn't know what to do with that. "Have you tried while I was here?"

Bruce shook his head. "I didn't want to try in case it..." right. If it happened and Clark was unprepared then who knows what might have happened. Hell if Bruce had done it a few years ago Clark might have called him a liar and never spoke to him. On the other hand, if they didn't show up then what? They just weren't on earth with him? Bruce couldn't call that far? He couldn't talk to dead aliens? 

"With fear there's always hope right?" Clark huffed. After all, if fear kept Bruce from trying then the hope his parents were around couldn't be distinguished.

"Right."

"Thank you for trying," even if it had gotten nowhere so far.

Bruce rolled his eyes, "you're welcome I guess."

They lingered there watching the stars. After a while Clark looked for Bruce's favourite constellation, remembering what he said about his mom telling him stories. Would Clark's mom have those? Would she have stories about his own solar systems stars? Or were kryptonians too scientifically minded to think about creating fiction from balls of gas?

Did it matter?

In the long run Clark had a Ma to fill his head with stories. Just like Bruce did. A mother who'd never left him, not really. Who right now was watching over her grandchildren. Who'd cared for Jason when he was gone from them. Clark had never felt so grateful to two people than he had in that moment. Even after all these years they were still with Bruce. They never turned their backs on him, even when, he suspected, they were the cause of some of the scars that lingered on Bruce's ears.

He was glad there had always been someone for Bruce, because Clark couldn't always be there, and ultimately, "I love you," and he never wanted Bruce to feel unloved.

Icy blue eyes glanced up at him from his arms, "I love you too," Bruce mumbled.

He leaned into his own arms, coming on a level with Bruce. "I mean it," he decided, screwing everything he'd ever thought about himself because it didn't matter. Diana was right about that. It just didn't matter. Not when happiness was on the other end of it. "I love you Bruce."

A few slow blinks was his answer, then, reminding Clark of just what Bruce's parents had been telling him to do Bruce asked, "You want to go out some time?"

Clark breathed, a smile coming to his lips as he realised he felt lighter than he had in a while. "I think I'm free tomorrow." 

There was a slow smile. "Tomorrow."

He felt like laughing. "You're gonna have to get a sitter though. Don't know if you know this but you have a lot of kids."

Bruce snorted, his nose wrinkling. "You don't even know about Cass."

Clark joined him in his laughter. 

Until he wondered if Bruce was actually joking about Cass.


End file.
